


Under grey flags

by Benquel



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, F/M, M/M, Spaceships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-23 22:31:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/931819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Benquel/pseuds/Benquel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 2050, a boy is sent off in an ejection pod from the corner of the solar system. He's saved but he later grows and learns that the world is full of shit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: On the junk ship

**Author's Note:**

> ill post every sunday/monday. enjoy the prologue!

 

 

The cold entity of space cradled the ejection pod, having it follow the current of a nearby planet’s gravitational pull. The oxygen tank leached by its side running dangerously low, only making the inside of the pod seem just a little colder and all the more small.

Space seemed nice, dark, but nice. Stars glittered under their own light and you were never short on them. Stories said you could scoop them into your hands, and on the many stars in the palms of your hands were the mirrors of the universe, and you would see yourself in the reflection.

But stars are just suns waiting to die out, too old and too tired.

Eren was tired too, as the comfort of oxygen was quickly depleting, his breathing shallow and slow. It was dark inside and the metal pressed up against him on all sides would have caused anyone to panic – he might have had, earlier, but memory was slipping from him.

He was exhausted and ready to shut his eyes again, but maybe sleep longer than he had before, maybe give up for a while – if he could. He shut his eyes, puffs of his breath echoed off the access panel to lightly rustle his hair.  

_“Eren, make it far, stay alive.”_

_“Wait—Dad please, my arm!” Eren was racing down the emergency deck after the man, the skin on his forearm feeling pinched under the grip. “What’s happening?”_

_“Get back to Earth.”_

_“Dad!”_

_Eren’s dad threw his hand to a panel after reaching the end of the deck and punched in four numbers. They made it into a small room with several apertures lining the walls._

_“Stay safe.”_

_“Stop—” He was flung into one of the port holes by his arm, his back making a hard metallic clunk against the inside. Eren was only just rushed out of bed and his senses were glazed, hardly able to pick up on what other foot to use when he moved, let alone understand his dad’s tears._

_“And steer clear of the Reconnaissance Fleet.” He reached a trembling hand to Eren’s cheek, wiping a few stray tears that started to fall, “I’m sorry.”_

_Suddenly there was a whisk and what connected the port to the room was cut off, lights inside tinkered to life and Eren felt the pit of his stomach sink as a co-ordinate reader read off what was being fed into the system (‘Emergency Capsule A5, welcome, please fasten the buckles situated by your waist—), there was a gunshot and boots pounding against the floor, Eren shrieked into his hands, (—only one passenger is advised, please be ready to be departed to Earth Star Substation, destination time is ten hours, take off is commencing now. Thank you for considering Anster Pod Incorporated, “An emergency made fun only with the best pods!”’)_

_The company jingle that followed was drowned out by Eren beating his fists against the metal door, howling at the ‘recreant bastards’ who were stabbing the butt of their guns to the console outside and against the panel. The countdown he hadn’t noticed finished at one, and a rumble started under his feet._

_The emergency capsule took off from the ship, Eren’s screaming only able to fill the emptiness of space._

The lights inside the pod had gone off after four hours, and Eren didn’t actually care. His heartbeat was the only sound filling his ears aside from his breathing; he swore he could almost catch the sound of his eyelashes fluttering over his cheeks if he strained hard enough.

He thought he’d die with a bit more explosion, with excitement trailing after him right until he felt a blade gouge his heart out. But Eren’s existence had ways of chewing at his bones, like now and like before, and after his mum gave out on holding his hand for the last time.

Tears were running down his face again, and he raised his hands to cup his eyes. Why is this so difficult?

 

* * *

 

Five hours in, helpfully quipped the capsule’s auto voice, oxygen tank at 10%. Energy saver unable to successfully deploy emergency signal. ( ‘Sorry.’ Eren wished it added.)

Eren started to think about what he could have seen if he reached earth - If Armin was still living in the countryside, if the dog with the missing leg was hanging around anywhere near his home town.

He’d been cooped up in the ship for two years, which sat idle just outside of the solar system – the ship wasn’t built for interstellar travel. His dad used the time to work with the crew he’d gathered, curled over graphs and consoles. They left when he was eight, believing they’d travel the universe and then some; but in those two years he found his blood in test tubes, syringes in his wrists, and food that looked like something he picked off his shoe once.

 He was really hungry.

* * *

 

“Three hours till pod reaches Earth Star Substation port,” Eren heard the voice say, “oxygen tank at 4%. Pod will not be able to continue journey with oxygen supply. Please resort to the oxygen masks in the panel to your right, which are unavailable. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

The punch he gave the ceiling of the pod rings in his ears, and he hisses out a ‘fuck you’ to the machine

 

* * *

 

He slips in and out of consciousness, his shallow breathing putting a strain on his ability to be aware of what’s actually happening.

Eren thinks he remembers the co-ordinate reader saying they were on two percent, maybe one. Maybe there isn’t any oxygen left.

Before he can react, something hits the end of the pod where his feet are, and it tilts in space, sending it spinning off course before reeling back the other way.

Was someone coiling him onto a ship? Eren tried to raise his head to see before remembering the lack of port holes, and dropped his skull against the headrest. He shut his eyes and waited for the moment that he wouldn’t wake up, and the owner of the ship would find him dead.

That thought was short lived when the back of the pod was slammed against something, and the panel was being torn off with a pry bar and before Eren can meet the eye of his savior, he feels the slap of an oxygen mask against his face. He takes a deep breath before shutting his eyes again and forgetting to open them.

 When he wakes in a cot with a woolen blanket strewn over him, it smells like something he remembers Earth smelling like, and pulls it closer to him.

Eyes suddenly meet his, but they look younger than what he thought they’d look like, and the girl grins, a few teeth in that smile missing. “Pa! Pa he’s awake come look!” She rapidly throws her head behind her for a second before turning back to Eren, shifting her seat closer and swinging her legs against the side of it. He can feel the thumping of her feet and he wants to ask her to stop but he doesn’t.

Someone comes in, his sleeves rolled up and he has grease staining the front of his shirt.

“Thank god you’re fine, how are you feeling?” he asks, a genuinely concerned crease in his brow adding another wrinkle to his forehead.

“I’m okay, thank you, sir,” He wrings the blanket in his fists, the girl eyes his hands curiously before inching her face closer to his.

“I’m Sasha,” she said, her cheeks rosy and her eyes bright as she continues, “And that’s my pa. He owns this ship and I co-own it.” Her dad gives a cheery wave from where he stood, his other hand scratching at his beard. He comes over and sits down at the end of the bed, and Eren can feel it dip and his legs tilt to where it sinks. “You were out for four hours; Sasha here has been keeping watch since then.”

She looks guiltily at her knees, “I had a juice box halfway – but I came straight back!” her head shoots up, expression intense. Eren thinks she’s about his age. “Why were you in the ejection pod?”

He freezes then, the blanket doing nothing to keep his nails from digging into his palms. Eren wants to push her face away, to call the ships homing signal, to cry. Before he can let the tears fall he feels a warm hand fall to his shoulder.

“What she meant to ask was, are you feeling up to some porridge?”

 

* * *

 

After sitting around with a bowl of porridge close to his face which he hungrily wolfs down (Sasha paces him as if she ate like she hadn’t in days) and keeping an ear open to what the girl’s dad has to say, he learns a lot after that hour.

They’re on a ship close to Earth’s orbit, and later if Eren wanted Sasha could take him to the deck to show him Earth through one of the windows. Sasha tells him she’s eleven, and that her and her dad have been working as traders since she was six, but this was only her first full year in space, since her dad would often take her back on holidays.

He eventually takes up on her offer to take him on the deck. Sasha grabbed his hand and tugged him to one of the lifts which whizzed them a few floors up, and he could already see the hallway lined with port windows on his right and he tears his hand away to race to the first one he meets, eyes darting to find a familiar orb of blues, greens and oranges. Sasha helpfully points some bit away from where his eyes where scanning, and when his eyes set on it he can see some of the blues, but the orange seems to have taken it up, and looks brown under the shadow of the planets and ships, the green littered in the far corners.

 “Was it always like that?” He turns to her, and she looks shocked for a second.

“Well, yeah, I guess. What’s different?”

“Just looks a bit… I don’t know, more brown?” Eren’s eyes turn back to the planet, and it confirms what he thought.

“Huh, I never noticed. I used to live in a really big forest that I bet you could have seen from here. But more people came and we had to leave. I got over it though, pa said a lot of crummy stuff was happening and it was a waste of breath moaning over some trees when we could do something that better suited us.” She smiled at him, but his eyes were still fixed on Earth.

“Do you think my village is still there?” He asked.

“Maybe, do you want to go see? We’re going back in a few weeks, is that okay?”

Eren nodded, and Sasha quickly threaded her hand in his and was starting to pull him away from the window, “Okay, let’s tell him, and then we can go play. I have these really cool starship replicas and a tea set I’ve never used and it’s gathering dust so let’s try it out!”

 

* * *

 

They bring the ship into Earth and land at the starship port, bridges are being hauled to meet the decks doors and when Eren steps out his nose takes in the sour smell of the people and the soil. The city was never his favourite place. There are enough people to hide the ground and almost everyone's shoulders are at least grazing another as they move about on the platform. 

He feels Sasha grab his hand, and she quickly fastens the other onto her dad's. 

The crowd thinned out, and they made their way into the market stalls that fanned the port. They bought him a coat to keep him from the sudden winds that brought on what was left of winter, and Sasha gave him half of a rolled up pastry that was put in a paper bag. When people weren't pressed against his sides he was able to relax in Sasha's hand, and walk with a pleasant quirk in his lips to one of the ends of the avenue. A car with rust that skirts it's corners sits by, humming over the chatter of people on the street. Sasha's dad ushers him into it and they make their way out of the city to Zhiganshina in Maria (up north is where Rose is, Sasha chirps).

When they make it there he's shocked to say the least at the copper coloured buildings and shop signs that gloom overhead. There used to be some, but not many, he was sure. Phone wires cross-hatched the sky, bruised with dark clouds and pigeons flock where ever one doesn't drop dead from a stray current. 

Eren quickly gathers his things in a ruck sack, knowing full well no one’s home anymore. Armin's house isn't there anymore, taken down and replaced by another copper coloured shack with a sign that flickers, spelling the words 'trinkets and goods'. He's eager to throw one of the clumps of clay by his feet at the windows, but stops himself and follows the two back to the car, having nothing left to stay for. 

He stays with them for a year, helping them run their entrepreneurship, before Sasha leaves to join the military unit.

She was eager to join the Reconnaissance Fleet when she turned sixteen, but the name struck a headache at the back of Eren’s head and he wished her luck, not missing the look of disappointment that flashed in her eyes when he didn’t accept her obvious invitation to join her.  

Eren spent four more months with her dad, who started recruiting more of a crew, before packing his things and leaving the ship. (He left with a ‘thank you for all your kindness’ and a hug that he got pulled into giving.)

He was almost twelve by now, and that was more than enough to start working on your own, by 2034 society stopped considering what was best and just started on acting with the concept of ‘if it’s bad now, consider it not worse, right?’. But things always got worse; law was trodden on and hassled by dollar bills.

 After a few months of spending nights in rain sodden cardboard boxes and paying little fees to spend the night on people's stairways, Eren finally kept enough lodged at the bottom of his shoes to rent the cheapest apartment in a city out in one of the slummiest regions of Maria, where he kept himself busy as a busboy in a family owned restaurant.

That’s where he met Mikasa, she was quiet and kept to herself, she often worked the dishes with him but on better days she served tables (- when she looked cleaner). He left after a year and somehow Mikasa ended up following him.

 

That’s how Eren spent the next few years of his life, doing odd job and hating his life just a little more. 

 

* * *

 

 


	2. Gale warning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> imagine shantytown in bioshock, and youll get the sort of setting im aiming for
> 
> also i know i said sunday/monday but i wanted to introduce levi as soon as possible

 

 

Rain pelted down, making dull thuds against the  scrap roofs and shanty buildings. The sky was swollen and a dirt brown, doing nothing to lift the gloom.

Deep in one of the avenues of the city, Eren sat on one of the wooden stools the small open shop left about, and raised the watered down coffee to his lips - he could have sworn the plastic cup was changing how it actually tasted, but he ignored it for now. (It costed hardly a thing, so he wasn't going to complain.)

His boat shoes were damp from the rain and he let them slip off from the heel to expose his threadbare socks. For now, to keep out of the rain and to use up some of his time he watched the people pass and weave around each other on the road and over the the bridge hoisted between two buildings. He also watched when a starship sailed overhead to reach the port station on the coast.

There were children loitering where the pavement turned a sharp corner from the road begging for coins, Eren hadn't a scrap on him and only glumly watched as time and time again their cupped hands were turned down.   

Eren turned away for a moment, and set his gaze on a gathered group that had just pulled themselves out of a car on the other end of the street. He could feel his mouth twist in an unimpressed frown when he saw the uniforms, which ever brigaid they were in he didn't care. He watched them fan out and into the crowd, now on his side of the street.

They made their way under the line of balconies to keep out of the rain. Had it not been raining Eren would've got up and left the moment he saw the beige coats, but he kept still in his chair and willed them to pass the shop and leave.

They of course, didn't. Instead they spread out under the shop's canopy.

Fuck.

"I don't see why we had to come through the Nedley District. Aren't there patrols practically making up one fift of Rose, couldn't we have gone through with them?"

"There's been riots building up on the first planned route, so no."

"Christ, they're so trivial." 

Eren tried to keep his eyes on the table - his eyes were watering at how intently he focused on the specks of rain water that wounded up on the wood - but he raised  his head and glowered at the uniform insignia on the back of one of the officer's coats. Reconnaissance Fleet. Not nearly as abject as the Military Elite, but no where near notibably kind either. Really with no concrete goal in mind for almost thirty years its hard to see the need for them, they mostly spend their waking hours and privilages on not living as shitty lives as the rest of the population.

"Something you want to say, kid?"

His green eyes quickly flung up to see a man standing just by the soldiers that were talking, what he said proccessed in his mind and said kid slowly frowned.

"I'm nineteen."

The man snorted, he was short, but his shoulders and torso were broad and fitted the uniform snuggly. "You're still less than half my age. Answer my question."

Eren could feel the bridge between his eyebrows twitch. "No," he grouched, "I have nothing to say." And turned his face away back to the road, bringing his coffee back to his mouth.

 The slap that joggled his table nearly had Eren spill the coffee over the lower half of his face and down his front. He brought his gaze back and looked up to see the man hunched over his table, palm spread over the centre. His eyebrows were kniting together and his eyes narrowed. They looked grey, Eren thought, but it was hard to tell with the poor lighting and lack of proper sunlight.

"I don't appreciate cheek, boy, you either respond to me properly or you keep to yourself."

Eren sharply returned the look, "Why should I?"

The officer's eyes flared dangerously, "The badge on this uniform says why."

"A badge doesn't impress me." 

"I could have you arrested."

"Yeah, you could. On false pretenses with no solid charge."

"Disregard of athourity seems to be pretty solid to me."

Eren's head spun, he could almost feel his brain roll in his skull from how fast his thoughts sped by. This guy was an asshole, the flare of anger he saw when he had slapped the table was replaced with something aloof, something an asshole would have settle on their face. It made him curl his upper lip and show teeth, the Reconnaissanse Fleet always gave him a nagging headache, like a fish hook latching the corner of his brain.

He wanted to heave out of his chair and punch him right where the bridge of his nose curved, feel the bone crunch under his knuckles and know full well that pieces were flying into the cavern of his skull. But instead he sat, hands wrapped around the cup and his green eyes unmoving. 

It would have brighten up his morning, but the slower, less rash half of his mind reminded him that if did try anything he'd be quickly flipped and find his arms locked behind his back in a firm grip in seconds.

So the flare in his eyes faltered, and his frown almost looked apologetic as he stared at his hands.

The man took that as his queue to reel back from the table, grunting out a 'fucking punk' before turning back to the other officers flocked just under the edge of the canopy.

"Asshole."

_Oh._

Before Eren could even register what was happening he felt himself bursting out of his seat before the man could spin back and reach over the table to grab his shirt. He stumbled away from the stool, staggering over his feet and moving like a deer under a sedative. He ran, ran across the road and bobbed and twisted into the crowd to find an alley - any alley, anything to get him out of the plaza.

The rain hadn't lightened up and it was adding weight into his shirt and trousers.

He risked glancing behind him; Eren's heart squeezed in fear when he saw the officer match his pace, pushing and shoving people in the crowd out of his way. He was almost hoping the man would have kept his cool and shrugged it off and let Eren run himself into the rain.

Eren made a sudden sharp turn when the dark opening of lane spliting from the avenue caught his sight, and pelted his feet against the wet cobble stones straight down it. His breathing was panicked and heavy when the end was fenced off, he would have attempted to climb it if there hadn't been several coils of barbed wire topping it. Instead his eyes shot out in every direction possible before hurridly landing on a fire-escape ladder that lead to the roofs. He leaped up to grab one of the bars before falling to his knees, his sweaty palms ruining his grip.

He tried again and made it, but as he raised his hand to grab the second bar Eren felt fingers grip the back of his collar and throw him to the floor.

His skull clacked against the cobble stone, and he looked dazed up to see a square face with lips drawn back in a snarl and a nose scrunched in disapproval.

"Can I, uh-"

"No." The man reached down and grappled Eren into his hold before hoisting him over his shoulder, Eren too stunned to put up a fuss.

 


End file.
